A silicone implant by Amprius makes smart phone battery lasts longer

Writing this on my smart phone, I wish I could extend the battery charge a little longer before I have to go wired. Wish granted, a battery making startup called Amprius is already making cells that last at least 20 per cent more.

What makes it tick: In a power-hungry age for smart phones, where the adapter/ charger has become a constant, unintended accessory, knowing that there is a more efficient battery out there, which is already being shipped to smart phone makers, gives cause for comfort.

The technology: The Amprius is your regular lithium ion battery, but with a silicone anode in place of a standard graphite one, and a cathode of nano silicone particles coated in carbon to make it sturdy. Amprius’s first-gen batteries, made this way, store 650 watt-hours per litre whereas the current batteries on your smartphone generally store between 400 and 620 watt-hours per litre. A huge advantage about the new tech in the batteries is that Amprius only needs existing equipment to produce these upgraded power cells, which is why it is already available in the market and will soon be in your smartphone.

Versatility: Smart phone makers can manipulate the Amprius battery according to priority—you can either achieve the same run time but with a smaller, lighter battery (which means a lighter phone or tablet), or you can pack in more sensors and faster chips while keeping the battery life the same, or just extend the battery charge.

Funding: Having innovated on the standard lithium ion battery, the startup has now received $30 million in funding to make the next generation of batteries that are 50 per cent more efficient.

Future use: An improved version of the Amprius battery will be able to run electric vehicles on a longer range in a single charge.

What a startup can learn from Amprius:

Constant innovation keeps you in demand–the Amprius battery, while being current tech, improves performance greatly, making it sought after, here and now.
Technology with applications in the mass market is a big draw for investors
Even relatively small advancements result in a leap

Lylah Isaac is in awe of any sufficiently advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic. Got a NEWS TIP related to this story—or anything else in the world of big tech? Write to her at lylahisaac@gmail.com
Follow her on Twitter @lylahisaac